


A House on Fire

by Amythe3lder



Series: Irregular Pieces [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, M/M, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, infidelity of all kinds, mystrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 15:11:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4142406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amythe3lder/pseuds/Amythe3lder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><strong>Prompt: Forgiving</strong><br/>He sighed and let his heart tug him back like an anchor hooked between his ribs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A House on Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Pull my coat around me  
> Feel the cold wind haunt me  
> Streets are empty just like me  
> "Love's Got A Lot To Answer For"-Elton John

When Greg Lestrade met Anna Nguyen, it was instant flashpoint heat and glittering arguments settled between sheets. They were both young and tempestuous, and this had led their mutual friends to nag at them for weeks. "Let me set you up," Greg’s cousin's flatmate's brother had insisted. "I know this girl, Greg. You'll love her." And he had, from the first word she'd spoken. He couldn’t pretend to remember what she had said over the loud band and the sudden rush of blood to his ears when she turned and grinned at the introduction, but the teasing in her tone and the dimples around her greeting had snagged him up and drug him along from the very beginning.

She’d heard all about him, she groaned later- after their group had abandoned them in a corner booth for the transparent excuse of all wanting to order complicated drinks at the same time. "You know they're already planning our wedding," she laughed, and the way her eyes sparked in the neon pub lights had made his mind up for him.

"We ought to make a start on that, then, eh?"

"Oh yeah," she agreed, with an easy toss of her needle-straight hair. She passed him her number on a napkin and a quick kiss across the table. "Your place or mine?"

It was his, and she giggled again when he tripped over his forgotten trainers in the floor.

***

"Greg, look, I made a mistake." Her voice was a bit scratchy through the poor reception, and he closed his eyes and imagined her, the sad-eyed picture of contrition. She meant it too; she always did. The problem there was twofold: that she never had any intention towards infidelity, and that a pattern was nonetheless emerging. He understood repeat offenders in the way of his profession. No one changes on their own.

To add insult to injury, his job neatly intersected with this last spot of cheating, which had covered more than one definition of _indiscretion_. “In my new office, though? Really.”

Anna pleaded gently, then paused and whispered, “It’s snowing again.”

He did what came to mind foremost now that he had set aside his hurt feelings and choked back the acrid taste of his temper. He sighed and let his heart tug him back like an anchor hooked between his ribs. “All right, but you owe me.”

She sniffled and let out a watery sort of chuckle, “Your desk or mine?”

In the end, it was her desk, and the start of their longest stretch together since the first split-up. It was also- they would learn later, in the midst of some blazing row over who had eaten all the ice cream- the creation of their son.

***

Greg didn’t know what it was about this time of year, but it never seemed to go well for them. He trudged down the street and gritted his teeth as his little house came into view. It had been hours since he’d left the aborted Christmas celebration on Baker Street, and he still wasn’t done cycling through his emotions. He took a moment to loop around a light pole and give the hot shame and anger a little longer to cool and sink into a ball of icy dread in his gut. As he doubled back, he saw his footprints in the thin layer of white on the sidewalk and considered how it would feel to never call this neighborhood his own again, to file change-of-address forms, to pack the parts of his life that mattered the least in boxes that would barely weigh down the trunk of a taxi. Then he realised how similar that looked to what he already did every other season or so, and winced.

When he pulled open the door, she was there on the couch with the telly glow a pale blue and the volume low. She tensed, but didn’t look up until he spoke. “Where is he?” he asked. Making sure to keep Ward out of earshot for this felt like the last action of his life as a good father.

“Asleep, at this hour,” she muttered, tight-lipped and reproachful. She could probably tell his evening by the state of his coat and shoes, damp with melted snow. At least his drink at the party had long since burned itself up in the relentless stream of sobering thoughts.

His mouth opened and the wrong side of truth came out, like a sudden drop off the sheer edge of a pleasant hill. “Surprised you know which _he_ I’m referring to.” Anna’s gaze turned sharp and searching before she subsided in guilt, seeing that he knew. He pressed, “Again? Or is it _still_? Which kind of a fool am I, sweets?”

His wife, so like him in nature, lashed out as a cornered animal might, “Can we stop pretending that you don’t have someone on the side, too?”

Greg flushed, thinking of Mycroft. “That stops when I come back home,” he said to the floor.

“I don’t think it does,” she said softly, and he looked up to see her shake her head. “Not the way that matters.” He thought back to mornings after she’d woken him for work, when her demeanor had inexplicably been chillier than the bathroom tiles against his bare feet, and he wondered if he always used the right name in the seconds while he was still dreaming.

“We’re not like that.” He drew his attention away from thoughts of anyone outside this house. He would give his marriage one last hour. Everyone else could tear him to pieces after, but this time was his wife’s turn. She could have it all, and then no more.

“Well, what are you like, Greg? I don’t see you enough to know anymore.”

So it must be this then. “If you weren’t forever running me out-”

“It might be harder if you didn’t have one foot out the door,” she rejoined, her voice fierce and quiet.

Greg let it drop, “Maybe the trouble is the foot that’s in.”

Anna froze, looked him full in the face and took a deep breath. “What are we doing?” He gave her the most honest shrug he had, and she nodded slowly and whispered, “I don’t think this is good for the boy.”

“I don’t think it’s good for any of us,” he agreed.

She waited a few beats before she met his eyes again and said, “I’m sorry.”

“So am I. And I forgive you. But I’m done.”

She was crying now, but she kept her voice clear. “Your forms or mine?”

He filed the petition.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Thank you for reading.


End file.
